I’ve just opened an online store where you can buy my artwork. Please visit kedowning.etsy.com and purchase something if you like it. I’ve got items priced as low as $10, so there’s something for every budget.
You know how they say it takes 20 times of doing something in order to make it a habit? Well, I didn’t quite make it to twenty before I started neglecting the sketchbook. I’m not giving up though.
Sometimes, I just don’t know what to draw. For these, I started watching TV and pushed pause (we have a DVR box) when I found an interesting face/hat.
I took a trip to the Iowa Historical Building today to draw some of the taxidermy. I some ideas in my head involving antlers and lots of critters so I thought I’d draw some animals that wouldn’t move. I didn’t remember the museum lighting being so low. It was extremely dim inside the exhibit making it hard to see much detail of many of the animals. I drew several sketches, but some weren’t blog worthy. I also took photos to look at later. They’re on Flickr, so if you’re interested you can compare them to my chicken-scratch drawings.
Since I was there, I also checked out a WWI exhibit (which had some nice illustrated posters) and an exhibit on restored Iowa paintings. The display on how paintings are restored was really interesting. There was supposed to be a video demonstration as well, but it didn’t work no matter how many times I pushed the button. The paintings themselves were eye-opening for me. Some of them were the typical boring portraits of people I’ve never heard of, and landscapes of non-descript locations. There were some that were strangely intriguing though. I may have to do a something with beards/mustaches. There’s something about the unruly growth of hair that is rebellious and slightly creepy. I was also amazed at the care and detail taken with most portraits’ faces, but many of the torsos/bodies lacked much detail and many seemed amateurish. There was one painting in particular of a man with shelves in the background that I really liked. The shelves were filled with taxidermied animals and at first glance you’d think the guy was Dr. Doolittle or Snow White with all her little friends. I thought about taking photos, but the flash might have damaged the art and my camera sucks in low lighting without it.
Here are more sketches from this week. I don’t know who’s worse at sitting still—the dog or Troy. I felt pretty silly baby-talking Princess to get her to keep looking at me. She kept wanting to burrow into the blanket where I couldn’t see her face. So far, I’m not overly pleased with any of the drawings, but I’m going to keep plugging away at it. I’m sure I’ll get better.